When I was 12, a few months after immigrating to America, my camp manager said during a trip, "Use common sense." I asked what is common sense, and this lead to a lot of laughter.
But the issue at hand is not a humorous one. Really, what is common sense? As someone who's been accused for a long time of lacking common sense, I find this a worthwhile thing to find out. If "common sense" is in fact common, then everybody would have it. If some people have it and others do not, then it cannot be called common sense.
So what, really, is common sense? Is it a universal adaptation or a cultural consciousness? Is it something that everyone has, or something that some people have? And if so, is it a desirable quality?
There are people who think it common sense to believe that an omnipotent entity could only have one son and no daughters. There are people who think it common sense to believe that scientists are commies and Satanists when their whole lifestyle is based on science. There are people who think it common sense to deny the negative impact of raising carbon emissions and cutting down the trees that absorb carbon dioxide at the same time. So what, then, is common sense? And is it a desirable quality?
One thing we know with the people who see themselves as possessing common sense is their hatred of real intelligence. But with real intelligence, it is in fact something that is replicable and that someone else can retrace. The scientific discoveries are done in such a way that others can follow the same path and come up with the same conclusions. Whereas with common sense this replicability is missing, and people are attacked for supposedly not having common sense when they do not come up with the same conclusions as are come up with people claiming to have common sense.
Furthermore, we see common sense differing drastically across cultures. Whereas the common sense of some cultures is accumulation of wealth, the common sense of other cultures is literature, or family, or national well-being, or divine righteousness, or getting out of the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation. With such vastly different common senses, is it rightful really to believe in the superiority of common sense? Or are we dealing here with something that is not only inferior to real intelligence but also culturally determined and thus having no applicability to people outside the given culture?
So my question, that I asked at age 12, still stands, What is common sense? And is it a rightful guideline for the world in 21st century?